Posts in Fun (57)

January 29th, 2013 | 0 Comments

ReignDesign January 2013 Playlist

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Music is sometimes really helpful for getting lost in your work, and at Reign you see a lot of headphones and tapping feet in a otherwise quiet office.

Ever wondered what kind of music your coworkers are listening to?
Or why, when I did, I realised we would probably never be able to agree on a playlist with such varied musical tastes. Here is roughly 5 songs from each of our team members, all mixed up. Click to download & get to know them:

1. Download side A
2. Download side B

Or listen to it on Spotify. (However here, all of the Chinese songs, some of the remixes and French songs are missing. )

January 2nd, 2013 | 0 Comments

ReignDesign’s most popular blog posts of 2012

ReignDesign had a fun and exciting year! We released some apps, visited conferences and  contemplated new technology! Here's a Top Ten List of our biggest moments.

1. Oooohh, look at the pretty pictures, iPad Retina vs. Non-retina. We loved the clarity of the retina display. How did we ever live without it?
2.  Git and SCP: this tutorial is perfect if you can't find your USB stick or if you don't feel like walking across the room to find one.
3.  Ever wondered about the controls for touchscreen games? Watch this talk that founder, Matt Mayer, gave in Kiev.
4.  In iOS5, Apple introduced native Twitter integration via the "Tweet Sheet" (aka TWTweetComposeViewController), allowing you to easily implement Twitter in your iOS app without worrying about all the heavy lifting. Continue reading this tutorial for more details.
5.  Look At Teh Pritee Kittehs! Our app, Cat Scan, was fun to make, and we enjoyed turning all of our phone contacts into cute kittens.
6.  Adding labels and re-assigning Github issues: Two ways to automate this common task!
7. Making Flockwork was a great learning experience filled with a few technical hurdles. We wrote a series of blog posts explaining the challenges in cocos2d.
8. Controls for games are important....like, really important.
9. Almost a year ago, we wondered how to best design an app for Windows 8  How accurate were we?
10. Remember the trend of making videos and lists about Sh*t People Say/Do, etc? We made one for iPhone Developers. You're welcome.
ReignDesign is excited about 2013, and we are looking forward to creating and updating.
Happy New Year!
November 30th, 2012 | 0 Comments

Movember Matt

The eleventh month of the year, formerly known as November, is now Movember at ReignDesign! I've been growing out my facial hair to help raise awareness of men's health, particularly prostate and testicular cancers.

It's important to remember that 47% of testicular cancer cases occur in men under 35 years. Check out BUPA's Movember page for more facts and prevention tips.

The evidence, Day 1 and Day 30.

November 15th, 2012 | 0 Comments

Which country has the most expensive iPhone apps, relative to the price of a Big Mac?

Apple now provides local currency billing for the App Store for 24 countries and territories around the world. That means that an app priced at 0.99 USD in the United States is priced at varying amounts around the world, for example 0.69 GBP in the UK and 6 CNY in China.

Of course, due to changing currency exchange rates, that means that users some countries end up paying more than others. We crunched the numbers for a "Tier 1" (0.99 USD) app using exchange rates from xe.net for 14 November 2012, to get this ranking:

As you can see, Norway and Denmark are currently the most expensive, costing 20% more than an equivalent app in the US, while South Africa has the cheapest apps, costing 10% less than the US.

Of course, a raw conversion to USD doesn't tell the whole story. People in different countries have different spending powers.

The Economist creates a famous "Big Mac Index" which compares Purchasing Power Parity using the price of an item available globally: the Big Mac. We used the numbers for July 2012 to compare the price of apps and Big Macs.

By this measure, India, Hong Kong and Russia have the most expensive apps in the world, with burgers around 2 times the cost of an app. By contrast, the lucky Swedes can purchase 6.9 apps for the price of a Big Mac (7 SEK versus 48.4 SEK). The US also has relatively cheap apps (or expensive burgers), clocking in at 4.4 apps per burger.

 

 

September 20th, 2012 | 0 Comments

Happy 3rd Birthday Jumpy! Download Pig Rush for FREE

In September 2009 we launched the very first version of Pig Rush for iPhone. Now, three years later, MILLIONS of you are playing Pig Rush on iPhone, iPad, Android, Facebook and Mac! To celebrate our third anniversary, we're making Pig Rush on iPhone and iPad completely FREE to download for one week. Tell your friends to visit http://pigrush.com/download now!